Matawalle and Agbigbo’s carved coffin

Permit me to go a bit esoteric today. The choice is not deliberate, or rather, not my making. The choice of the topic of discourse demands that I dig deep into our cultural repertoire to be able to situate it properly. And a confession here: I had wanted to take a break from the political stuff and do something different. But our elders say: “omo buruku kii je ki oro ehin tan”. A bad child keeps bringing to remembrance past bad events. I chose the evil bird, Agbigbo, also known as Agbigbo-Niwonran, in its purely metaphoric sense. The allegory of Agbigbo (Hoopoe) is as scary as the content and character of the man whose utterances birthed this piece. As it is in our African Traditional Religion, ATR, Agbigbo is also regarded as an evil bird in the Western religion of Christianity. Bible scholars categorised the bird “as unclean and forbidden food for Jews. … The Book of Leviticus groups the Hoopoe with birds such as the eagle, vulture and pelican that are abhorrent, not to be eaten”. In ATR, especially as depicted in the Ifa Corpus of Obara Meji, Agbigbo-Niwonran is described as “Omokunrin Igbeposi”- A male child who specialises in carving coffins. In all ramifications, Agbigbo is evil. He carves its coffins and gives it aesthetic values. Pray, no matter how beautiful a coffin is, who goes to the market to purchase it for fun? Agbigbo knows this; that his coffins are bad market. So he devices a means of selling it. After carving, he casts a spell in the name of the intended victim and carries the goods to the houses of its would-be victims. On whoever’s frontage Agbigbo places his carved coffin, the fellow dies and his or her relations will have to buy a coffin to bury him or her. As recorded in Obara Meji, Agbigbo has taken his carved coffin to many homes and tears and agony accompanied him everywhere he went. One day, he decided to take the coffin to Orunmila. Orunmila is the father of all Divinations (Orunmila Baba Ifa). The night before, Orunmila had a terrible dream. He consulted Ifa. Ifa told him that death was coming to kill him. A sacrifice was prescribed. Orunmila carried out the sacrifice with military precision; he left nothing out. The day Agbigbo arrived at Orunmila’s house with his coffin, Esu (The trickster), was waiting for him. Esu asked to know the content of the load Agbigbo carried and the evil bird disclosed that he carved the coffin with Orunmila’s name as the next victim. He wanted to put the coffin down but Esu would not have any of that. One after the other, Esu brought out all the items Orunmila had offered as sacrifice and gave them out to Agbigbo, who was standing with his coffin on his head. Agbigbo collected all the items. Then Orunmila and his household came out singing: “Iku lo gbe de’le yi o, a wa o ra, Agbigbo ma gbe’ru re o ko ma lo o,  a wa o ra” (It is death you have brought unto us, we are not buying, Agbigbo carry your load and go, we are not buying). “Arun lo gbe de’le yi o, a wa o ra, Agbigbo ma gbe’ru re o ko ma lo o,  a wa o ra”. (It is a disease you have brought unto us, we are not buying, Agbigbo carry your load and go, we are not buying).

Last Thursday’s utterances by Governor Bello Mohammed Matawalle of Zamfara State is nothing but the carved coffin of Agbigbo-Niwonran. Matawalle, as the chirpy minion of the entire North, represents the death of Nigeria with his crass arrogance. But his arrogance, definitely, is the arrogance of the clan he spoke for in that unfortunate statement. The allegory of Agbigbo bird is more applicable to the entire North; a region which arrogates to itself the power of life and death over Nigeria. As reported by the media, Matawalle had carved his deadly coffin in the form of a personally endorsed statement, warning that the North might retaliate “attacks” on Northerners in the South. In that reckless statement, the governor, who has more than half of his state occupied by bandits and other felons, described the southern part of the country as “unfriendly South’’. Matawalle conveniently changed the narrative of the violence, killings, kidnappings and other nefarious activities of some Fulani criminal elements in the South. He painted a picture of the North as the victim and the South as the villain. He vomited: “If Northerners and their means of livelihood will not be protected, accommodated and be dignified anywhere they choose to stay in any part of the South, Southerners should not expect protection from the North as the North has more than what it takes to respond to any kind of aggression and hatred”. He alluded to the “last Sunday’s killings of innocent Northerners in Imo” as “one too many”. He was at the same time blind to the killings of Ebonyi people by the same “innocent” Northerners a week before. Then he issued his Fatwa: “In fact, in a crisis situation, the South has more to lose in terms of its business interests in the North and the strategic nature they established themselves in the North than Northerners living in the South”. He told us that the Agbigbo (North) knows about the “weaknesses and disadvantages the South is exposed to whenever there is such crisis….”. Ironically, Matawalle issued this statement the very day the North’s Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, warned Northern leaders against utterances that could inflame political, religious and ethnic passion in the country. That itself is a departure from the Agbigbo carved coffins the ACF has been selling to other parts of the country for ages. Tired of its acquiescence to the bloodletting of its children down south and everywhere else, ACF said it , “stand against all lawless acts of self help and call on all northern youths to stop such evil plans”. It distance itself from such planned violence and instead, routed for “dialogue and consultation”. ACF also agreed that the North, as well as the entire nation is “troubled” and needs “normalcy”

Another coffin bearing Agbigbo, the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), also took a rather uncommon stance. It wrote to ACF to accuse the Federal Government and other Northern states governments of being responsible for the tension between herders and farmers down South.  Miyetti Allah, the mouthpiece of cattle rearers in the country noted that with the over 400 grazing reserves in the North, herders have no business pasturing their cattle from Kano to Ibadan. “The government should see to settling of herders in the grazing reserves and avoid the present situation where they are scattered all over the country”. It recognised, for the first time, that moving cattle from Kano to Akure is tantamount to Agbigbo carrying his coffins about. Such comes with death and Miyetti Allah agreed that “this is the cause of the problem we have today”. It asked that the herders should be provided with “necessary educational, health and other facilities in the grazing reserves”. These facilities, like the sacrificial items Esu offered Agbigbo,  will improve their status and “boost their productive capacity and the productivity of the country”. These it said must be done “as urgently as possible”. Failure to do those things, the group warned: “We are sitting on a time bomb and the government is not taking the issue seriously. Unless we address this now, I’m afraid in the next 10 to 20 years, people may not even be able travel anywhere in the country”. Like we used to say in our secondary school days jargons, “the wisdom of Solomon has nothing to do with the age of Methuselah”.   Matawalle should feel thoroughly embarrassed that herders have a better appreciation of what the problems are than him, a man who prides himself as the chief security officer of the state. His claims that  “the South has more to lose in terms of its business interests in the North and the strategic nature they established themselves in the North than Northerners living in the South”, are inherently fallacious. Beclouded by the desire to sell his carved coffin, Matawalle forgot to note that every business in the North passes through the South. He became ignorant of the fact that the very commodity, which oils the North’s business empire, is gotten from the South. The beauty of it all is that, although temporarily, the other Agbigbo groups in the North: ACF and Miyetti Allah, refused to hawk Matawalle’s Agbigbo’s coffin. Rather, they chose to play the role of  Esu outside Orunmila’s house to ward off Matawalle’s wares of death and disaster. That is good enough. What  remains for all men of good conscience to do now is to  sing  in tandem with ACF and Miyetti Allah by telling Matawalle thus: Iku lo gbe wa’le yi o, awa o ra; Matawalle ma gberu e o,awa o ra (It is death you have brought unto us, we are not buying, Matawalle carry your load and go, we are not buying). Ogun lo gbe wa’le yi o, awa o ra; Matawalle ma gberu e o,awa o ra (It is war you have brought unto us, we are not buying, Matawalle carry your load and go, we are not buying) Fon’pomo’yo lo gbe wa’le yi o, awa o ra; Matawalle ma gberu e o,awa o ra (It is disorderliness you have brought unto us, we are not buying, Matawalle carry your load and go, we are not buying) Idarudapo lo gbe wa’le yi o, awa o ra; Matawalle ma gberu e o,awa o ra ( It is confusion  you have brought unto us, we are not buying, Matawalle carry your load and go, we are not buying).

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